


The Last Piece

by Walutahanga



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 07:28:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17117042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga
Summary: Sam and Kara's plan to seduce their oblivious soulmate takes an unexpected detour.(A re-mix of my other fic 'Mired', told from Sam's perspective).





	The Last Piece

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Mired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6736948) by [Walutahanga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Walutahanga/pseuds/Walutahanga). 



It takes Sam all of five minutes to work out Lee and Kara are soulmates.

They’re not exactly subtle, either of them. Between the big sad eyes Lee keeps casting Kara’s way and how she desperately avoids looking at him, there’s definitely some sort of history there. Add in Kara’s casual mention of another living soulmate – _“Just another frack-up of mine, don’t worry about it”_ – and it doesn’t take a genius to add two and two together. 

Another man might have been worried, but Sam has never wasted much energy on jealousy, even before the end of the world. Having multiple soulmarks requires a certain kind of philosophical acceptance, that either you will love and lose a lot of people or you will love a lot of people at once. Sam’s always preferred the latter. He’s happy for Kara to pursue her relationship with Lee, so long as she doesn’t mind him doing the same when he meets his other two still-living soulmates.

The problem is that Lee and Kara don’t seem to know what _they_ want. Kara gets a hunted look and changes the subject whenever Sam brings it up while Lee seems to wilfully misunderstand. So Sam backs off and leaves it alone. 

Then one night things get complicated.

Sam is using the pilots’ showers after Kara went on shift. Walking through the Caprica smelling of sex was just asking for heckling. He already had enough of a reputation as Starbuck’s boy-toy.

Lee enters just as Sam’s getting out of the shower, but that’s not the complicated part. The complicated part is that as they’re edging past each other, shuffling to make room in the cramped space, Lee stands on Sam’s bare foot. It’s a fleeting moment of skin to skin contact, gone a moment later, but for Sam it’s like being slapped in the face by a comet. A dazzling moment of complete rightness, then gone again.

He stares at Lee’s back, who doesn’t seem to have noticed anything and is walking toward a cubicle. Sam notices that his mouth is hanging open and closes it.

Really? _Really_?

A sneaking smile tugs at his lip. At least this will make their marriage arrangements simpler.

* * *

Kara doesn’t believe him at first. Then she gets angry.

“I don’t understand why you’re upset,” Sam says. “I’m not trying to steal him; he’ll still be yours as much as he ever was.”

Kara throws a mug at the wall. “That’s not the point!”

“Then what is the point?”

It comes out after a few more thrown items. The whole sordid story about the engagement to Lee’s brother, the instant attraction, the almost kiss, and the poor judgement call that got Zak killed. A tangled frack-up by anyone’s standards and more than enough reason for Kara to have kept her distance and Lee to chase off after some girl in the CIC.

“Right,” Sam says. They’re drinking by this stage, seated on either side of a table and sharing a bottle of Chief’s worst moonshine. “So what are we going to do about this?”

Kara gives him a narrowed glare. “Nothing. That’s what we’re going to do.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it? No arguments?”

“You’ve got good reasons.” Sam says it with a pang of regret. “It’s a shame. I’d have liked to frack him at least once.”

Kara laughs, and the tension disappears from Sam’s back. It’s a sign that she’s worked through whatever splinter was driving her crazy.

“Aw, honey. Does someone have a crush?”

“Hard not to,” Sam mutters, which makes her laugh harder.

“Tell you what,” she says, wheezing. “If we can seduce him together, you can frack him while I watch.”

Sam is pretty sure this isn’t doing nothing but he’s not about to argue.

* * *

Lee, it turns out, is gods-damned difficult to seduce. He doesn’t react to any of Sam’s flirting or Kara’s teasing. While he drinks like any pilot, it’s not to excess and he usually has his girlfriend with him at the bar.

Through persistence Kara and Sam do manage to get Lee alone once. They start making out – a kind of demonstration purposes thing – and Sam looks up to invite Lee to join them, only to see the door closing behind him.

“Fracking hell,” Kara says, sitting back and brushing her hair out of her face. “That didn’t work.”

“Maybe he’s not interested,” Sam says, really meaning ‘ _not interested in me_ ’. It’s a hard thing to admit your soulmate doesn’t like you, but he’s getting a real hostile vibe from Lee.

“Frack, maybe he really is into Lieutenant Du-aalllaa.” Kara drags the name out sulkily, dragging the bottle over to her for a swig. “Gods they must have the most boring dates. Probably get off discussing sub-sections of the dress code.”

“She seems nice,” Sam says, trying to be objective.

“Of course she’s nice.” Kara scowls at nothing. “She’s gods-damned perfect.”

“Jealous?”

“Frack off.”

* * *

Their chance doesn’t really come until Lee arrives in New Caprica for the ground-breaking ceremony. Of course his girlfriend comes with him, but no plan is perfect. Kara snags the girlfriend and Sam lures Lee over to a free table with booze.

Their plan is simple; divide and conquer. Made all the easier because the girlfriend (Sam really has to start remembering her name) is scheduled to return to Galactica that night. All Sam and Kara have to do is wait her out.

Then things enter a new stage of complicated.

Because the girlfriend is… nice.

She’s reserved at first, shoulders a little stiff, answers a little stilted. Then as she becomes more comfortable, she warms up. It turns out she makes the funniest little asides, perfectly timed to make Kara choke on her drink. She also has the prettiest green eyes and a wicked little smile and _frack_ , now Sam understands why Lee wasn’t interested.

As if to seal the deal, it turns out she and Lee wear each other’s marks. Lee proudly tells the story of how they found out – “So here’s me, standing there gaping like an idiot, and there’s her asking cool-as-you please if she could see my mark, like this was some kind of dental appointment.”

“It wasn’t quite like that,” Dee mutters, covering her blushing face with her hands.

“I had no idea what to say.”

“ _Yes_ , apparently,” Kara smirks.

“Hey, when a lady asks to see your mark, you show the lady your mark.”

Dee makes a muffled, mortified sound and Sam realises that he can’t lure her boyfriend into cheating on her. No matter how pretty Lee is and how desperately Sam _wants_ , he can’t hurt Dee like that or let Kara do it.

So when Dee starts talking about leaving, he quickly joins Lee in appealing her to stay. He’s pretty sure that pisses Kara off, because that’s when she drops her bombshell about fracking Dee. (Which, in hindsight, explains a few things).

When Lee and Dee have gone off to the bar, Kara hisses at him: “What are you doing?”

“What are _you_ doing?” He hisses back.

“I don’t know!”

“Neither do I!”

They glare at each other a moment, then Kara shrugs and says: “Frack them both?”

Sam isn’t sure that’s much better of a plan. Then he thinks about getting his hands on Dee’s tight little body and says “Yeah, okay,” through a dry throat.

* * *

Sam’s feeling pretty good about this plan. Everyone’s drunk, but not too drunk that their judgement’s impaired. Lee’s warmed up a lot and Dee doesn’t seem inclined to leave. Sam puts his foot in his mouth once, about Lee and Kara being soulmates which gets him cut off, but seriously, it’s not like it was a _secret_.

“Being soulmates doesn’t mean it always works out,” Dee remarks into the awkward silence, a little flushed from drinking or embarrassment, or both. “I found one of my soulmates and it didn’t work out.”

 _Thank you, Dee,_ Sam thinks in relief, grateful that someone is digging them out of this hole. He is definitely going down on her tonight. For however long as it takes to make her see the gods.

“You mean Billy?” Lee says, something odd in his voice. Sam starts to ask who’s Billy, except Kara kicks him under the table as soon as he opens his mouth.

“No…” Dee waves her hand vaguely. “The bird one. They’re not dead. It just… didn’t work.”

“I didn’t know that,” Lee replies, voice softer.

“Well. Now you know.” Dee looks down at her drink and Sam wonders who was such an idiot to walk away from her 

Kara sets her empty glass down, a new troubling gleam in her eyes. “Now I’m curious,” she says. “What are they, civilian? They can’t be military or I’d have heard some scuttlebutt.”

“Or I am very discrete.”

“No, they have to be military. That’s where you spend all your time.”

Sam notices Dee is looking uncomfortable and tries to kick Kara under the table, but she’s squirmed out of reach, trying to get Lee to tell her where Dee’s mark is. Lee, because he’s not a complete dumbass, won’t tell her, and Dee is looking more and more uncomfortable with every passing second, while Sam and Kara’s chances of getting laid tonight sink lower and lower.

“I’m going to get this!” Kara is saying. “Lets see, who else have you fracked besides Billy, Lee and –”

She abruptly stops, staring at Dee. It’s the first time Sam’s ever seen his girlfriend utterly dumbfounded. Perplexed, he looks at Dee, who is hunched mortified in her seat.

Is her other soulmate really that bad? Gods, it better not be someone like Gaius Baltar. She deserves way better.

“So I need a refill,” Dee says, clearly looking for an escape. “Anyone?” She darts away from the table and Sam mentally kisses good-bye any chance with her or Lee tonight. Thank you Kara. Thank you so _very_ fracking much.

Except Kara’s dumbfounded expression has crept back in favour of anger and she shoves back from her chair, clearly with the intent to follow.

Sam tries to catch her. “Kara, Kara, let it go. We’ll try again another time.”

“Frack off, Sam!” She hisses. “That’s my– she’s been fracking here all along and she didn’t say a gods-damn word!”

She shoves through the crowd after Dee. “What the hell was that about?” Lee says, not waiting for an answer before striding after them. Sam sees the looks they’re getting and can only imagine the rumours that are going to fly tomorrow. None of which would do justice to what’s actually happening. Even if he himself isn't quite clear on what's happening. 

He and Lee catch up just as Kara is dragging Dee into a tent. Dee is resisting by digging her heels in, but hasn’t screamed or thrown a punch, so Sam figures this is not a situation that requires intervention just yet.

“Uh, Kara,” he says, just to remind her that there are people watching. “What are you doing?”

“Checking something!” She shoves Dee inside and storms in after her. Sam looks at Lee.

“Do you know what’s going on?”

“Not the faintest.”

Sam opens the tent-flap to find Kara trying to get Dee’s pants off, which… okay, that was their end goal, but he had hoped for a less forceful approach. Lee makes a small sound behind him that might have been horror or arousal.

“Should we come back later?” Sam says, trying to catch Dee’s eye so he can know what he’s supposed to do. Dee has got this strange resigned expression as Kara finally manages to yank her pants down to her knees.

 _Oh gods,_ Sam thinks. He is definitely going to be defending his wife from a sexual assault allegation if he doesn’t step in. He comes in, reaching for Kara… who’s stopped, kneeling before Dee. One hand is stroking the other woman’s bare thigh reverently.

“Lieutenant,” she says, voice gone warm and low in a way Sam’s only ever heard directed at him in private moments. “You are the best damn triad player I’ve met in my life.”

That’s when Sam sees the words on Dee’s skin. He thinks; _Oh_ and _That explains a lot_.

* * *

After Dee storms out, Kara turns on the next best target, who happens to be Lee.

“Did you know?”

Lee stares at her. “What?”

“Did you fracking know Lee? Did the two of you decide between you that I just wasn’t worth the fracking effort?!”

“No, Kara, I didn’t fracking know! How was I supposed to? I didn’t even think you liked each other.”

“We have a fracking soulmark in the same place! You never thought to point it out!”  

Something ugly crosses Lee’s face. “Don’t get mad at me because you were too drunk to notice you fracked your own soulmate!”

Kara bares her teeth and goes to punch him. She only fails because Sam gets between them and manages to catch the punch on his shoulder instead of Lee’s jaw.

“Okay, okay, enough,” he says, shoving them both back a step. “Enough! We’re not doing this here.”

Chief sticks his head in the tent. “You do know _everyone_ can hear you, right?”

“Frack off!” Kara and Lee yell at the same time.

Sadly for them, Chief is immune to intimidation from pilots. “If you’re going to frack it out, have the decency to not do it while Dee’s crying at the bar,” he says and departs again.

Lee swears quietly, running his fingers through his hair. “I’ll go find her,” he says. “Maybe we can sort this out tomorrow, yeah?” He sounds tired and despondent, and Sam has a sudden certainty that if he lets Lee and Dee walk away now, they will _never_ sort it out. They’ll all retreat to their respective corners to lick their wounds and be dancing around each other until the end of time.

“No,” he says. “I’ll go find her.”

Lee looks surprised, and not very pleased. “Thanks but I think we should just–”

“It should be someone neutral. Lets face it, you’re not exactly pleased she didn’t tell you either.”

“I– ” Lee stops. “No, I guess not.”

“So let me talk to her. I’ll get her some water, let her cry it out and sleep it off in our tent. And tomorrow everyone will be more level-headed.”

Lee doesn’t like it, but he’s drunk enough that he can’t find any rational argument against it. Sam lets the two of them go with a suggestion that they not drink anymore, but doesn’t really think they’ll listen.  

Doesn’t matter. He’s got to talk to Dee.

He may not have been _entirely_ honest about being a neutral party.

* * *

He finds Dee at the bar. She looks sad and angry, and Sam wants nothing more or less to take her in his arms, even though in the mood she’s in that will probably end with a knee in the groin.

Her jaw clenches as he slides into the seat next to her. “I’m surprised you left them alone,” she says tightly, not looking at him, and he is just relieved that her first words aren’t ‘frack off’.

“They have to straighten some things out,” he says, which might be the understatement of the year. “I wanted to talk to you anyway.”

“Yeah?” She gives him a scathing once-over. “What about?”

It’s surprisingly hard to put the question out there: “Do you have a soulmark here?” He touches his stomach.

She freezes with her drink halfway to her mouth, staring at him with wide green eyes.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he says, wishing she didn’t look quite so stunned. It’s not as if he’s so unlikely. Before the end of the world, he was considered quite the catch.

The silence stretches out long enough to be awkward before she finally says, so softly that he almost doesn’t catch it: “Mine says ‘old soul’.”

He tries not to let his relief show. “Mine says ‘quiet moon’.”

She sets her glass down and swivels on the bar stool to face him. Sam is vaguely aware that they’re being watched by people at the bar (what does Kara Thrace’s boy-toy want with Lee Adama’s girlfriend?) but he can’t look away from Dee’s intent expression.

“Show me,” she says, and Sam lifts his shirt to show his fourth soulmark. She wets her lips, the tiniest flash of a pink nervous tongue, before she touches her fingertips against the words.

Some indefinable expression crosses her face, but before he can figure it out, she’s leaning back and untucking her own shirt, and he’s indecently hasty in getting his fingers on the words elegantly curled under her naval. Last time, with Kara and Lee, it had been a flash, like being hit with an avalanche or having the ground yanked out from beneath you. Here it’s more like a gentle cloud settling over him, sinking into his bones.

“That’s mine,” he says, wanting to follow his fingers with his mouth and trace the words with his tongue. But that’s Kara’s method of celebrating, and he’s not sure how Dee does things. Or if it’s even a cause for celebration, for her. She’s still giving him that same strange, unfathomable look.

He can’t have been too much of a disappointment though, because it’s only a few minutes later she tells him to make it up to her.

* * *

It’s a strange experience, leading Dee to his and Kara’s tent. Yes, this had been the plan, but that was before he’d seen his mark on her skin and felt the connection open between them like a fine silk gauze.

Her fingers, clasped in his, are a little cold. He rubs his thumb over them, marvelling at how _tiny_ she is compared to him. Lee was solid muscle and Kara was such a centre of frenetic energy it was impossible to overlook her. Dee feels like she could disappear if he’s not careful. It’s been such a long time since Sam has needed to be careful with anyone.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says when they’re enclosed in the warm confines of the tent and Dee is unbuttoning his shirt. “We can just talk if you want.”

Dee smiles – the same mischievous gleam in her eye as when she was making Kara laugh. “I want you.” She touches his mark again, her fingertips under his naval making him shiver. “I wondered about you. The last piece.”

“I wondered about you too,” Sam says. “I thought you’d be different.”

“Different how?”

“More… loud. Or annoying. More like Lee and Kara.”

She laughs, but there’s an edge to it. “We certainly have a type.”

“I wouldn’t call it that.” On the warm skin of her shoulder-blade he finds the rippled glossy burn scar of a dead mark. He’s careful to skirt around it. “More like we’re theirs. Good luck telling either of them no.”

“I tell Kara no all the time.”

“You’re smarter than me.” He kisses her neck, feels her arms slide around the back of his neck. For a while, there’s nothing but this lazy play. “Say something,” he says eventually.

“Like what?”

“Anything. Something about yourself. What’s your favourite myth?”

“Hmm.” She thinks about that while he kisses her neck. “I always liked Eros and Psyche.”

“Ah. The monster and the maiden. You surprise me.”

“He’s not a monster, though. He’s just cursed to appear as one in the eyes of his soulmate, so he can only come to her at night.”

“I always thought they were rather stupid. I mean, she lights a candle after she’s promised not to look. Either he didn’t tell her what would happen, or she didn’t believe him. Either way, stupid.”

“Yes, but that’s the whole point. He wakes up and is so terrified she’s seen him that he runs away, and she has to chase after him because she doesn’t care what he looked like. The whole curse was stupid and they were tying themselves up in knots for no reason.”

Sam pulls back, surprised. “Is that the Saggitarion version?”

“Of course. Why? What’s the Tauron version?”

“Less happy. She’s the one who runs away and he’s the one who chases after her, begging her to come back. Of course she’s so terrified she throws herself off a cliff.” Sam pauses, thumb rubbing in the small of Dee’s back. “It gave me nightmares when I was a kid.”

“That would give anyone nightmares,” she says after a moment. “That’s _awful_.”

“I prefer your version,” he admits.

“Who wouldn’t?” She slips her arms about his waist. “Next time, tell me a happier story.”

“Next time?”

“Yeah. Next time.”

He kisses softly on the mouth. “I’ll see what I can come up with.”

* * *

Sam has the dream again for the first time in years, of running through a dark forest. He knows if he looks back, he won’t be able to run anymore. Terror will paralyse him and whatever is following will catch up –

He jerks awake and finds himself in bed. It’s dark but he can make out the curve of Dee’s shoulder in the dark, the soft sound of her breathing. From the quiet outside the tent, the party has finally wound down.

He wonders briefly where Kara and Lee are, then decides if they’re not back by now, they’ve found somewhere else to crash. Sam hopes Kara’s finally managed to get a leg over with Lee; she’ll be pissed if he got lucky and she didn’t.

He closes his eyes and goes back to sleep. 

* * *

Apparently Dee is an early riser. When he wakes again it’s to her stealthily trying to slip out from under his arm. He’s just about managed to convince her to stay for another round when Kara staggers in the tent flap, in a surprisingly good mood for someone hungover.

Dee departs quickly after that, and Sam doesn’t try to stop her, other than to extract a promise to come back for breakfast.

“I’m starting to think my soulmate likes my boyfriend better than me,” Kara remarks dryly as the tent flaps swings behind Dee.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Sam says, slipping arm over his girlfriend. “Promise you won’t throw anything at me.”

“Sam?”

“Promise.”

“Fine. I promise.”

“You know that fourth soulmate I mentioned…?”

“Yeah.” There’s a pause of about two seconds, then Kara bolts upright. “Mother-fracker!”

“You said no throwing things!” Sam points out hastily.

“I should kick your ass! How long have you known?”

“Less time than you knew she was yours.” Sam scratches the back of his neck sheepishly. “I started to wonder. The three of you lined up so perfectly and I had one more mark left, so I asked –”

“And she just fell into your arms. Frack.” Kara lies back with a sigh.

“Not exactly,” Sam feels compelled to point out. “I didn’t drag her into a tent and try to rip her pants off, so I think that was a point in my favour.”

She smacks his stomach. “Funny.”

“I thought so.”

“Gods. I could have been fracking Dee and Lee for years by now.” Kara sounds more wistful than angry and for a moment Sam lets himself think on that. If they’d all found each other earlier. Maybe back before the cylon’s attack.

A perfectly balanced quartet had been the dream back then, and he’d had more than enough money to support three spouses, plus a few rugrats. He could have been introduced to… well, not Kara’s mom, but Lee’s dad and Dee’s parents…

“Does Dee have any surviving family?” He asks, realising that he barely knows anything about his third soulmate, other than the very basics of scoping out competition. It’s not likely that Dee has family left (few people do these days), but stranger things have happened.

“No, they’re gone. Not much of a tragedy there.” Kara sounds unconcerned. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

“They weren’t good to her?"  

“I met her crying over a shitty-ass letter telling her that she was worthless and would never measure up. Poor kid looked so miserable I gave her a drink and went down on her a few times to cheer her up. Must have worked because she showed up later at a poker game all bright-eyed and hopeful.” Kara frowns suddenly. “I don’t even remember what I said to her.”

“Couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Oh, it was. She was cool as ice to me afterwards. Fracking drove me insane too, because it made her ten times as frackable. All I wanted to do was get her hot under the collar and make her squirm again.”

Sam’s about ready to squirm too. “Really,” he says.

“Mm-hmm. Must have thought about hitting her up again a hundred times, but didn’t want to look stupid if she threw it in my face. Fracking worst decision I ever made. If I’d known she was my soulmate, I’d have gotten her to the chapel if I had to drag her there.”

“Mmm,” Sam agrees. Then: “What?” 

“Oh, did I mention? We’re getting married. All of us.”

 “Today?”

 “Nah, we need to have the Admiral there. Tomorrow maybe.”

 “Does Lee know this?” It doesn’t sound like Lee’s idea, but then Lee can be just as impulsive as Kara, in different ways.

 “Not yet. We’ll spring it on him once we’ve got Dee lined up. You should probably let him know you’re his soulmate first, that’ll get him all off-balance and malleable.”

 “Malleable.” Sam reflects on that. “I do like the idea of Lee malleable.”

Kara snorts and wriggles closer. “I thought you would.”

* * *

To Sam’s surprise, Dee and Lee are waiting outside, ready to go to breakfast. Lee looks no real worse for wear, if in need of a coffee or three.

“You’re walking with Sam,” Kara tells him, grabbing Dee’s hand. “You two have shit to sort out.” 

Sam watches them walk off, not sure how he feels about this development. Yes, he has to talk to Lee, but he’d been hoping to build up to it.

He flicks a look at Lee, and finds his soulmate giving him a look that’s somewhere between wariness and hostility.

“So our girlfriends are getting along,” Sam says, trying for light.

“Better than last night,” Lee agrees after a moment. “So you and Dee…? You’re 'old soul'?”

Sam smiles at those words. “Yeah. She’s my quiet moon.”

“I see.” Lee looks a bit perturbed, and it occurs to Sam that this might not seem like a good thing to him. That for Lee, his rival now has a claim on two of his soulmates, not just one.

Rival. Sam doesn’t like that word. That’s not what he wants to be for Lee. He’d hoped – but maybe that’s not how this will work. Even the priests admit that soulmates are not always an unambiguously _good_ thing. They are the path you are meant to walk, and paths are not always kind or easy.

“I think Kara might have a group-relationship in mind,” he says, deciding to give Lee a little bit of warning. “For all four of us.”

“Oh.” Lee looks a bit like he swallowed a lemon, looking Sam up and down. “How do you feel about that?”

“I always figured I was headed for a group. You?”

“I’ve no idea.” Lee scratches the back of his neck. “I was never very good at sharing.”

It’s a bit of honesty, offered up freely, and Sam tries to reciprocate.

“Well, think about it. There are some things I wouldn’t mind sharing with you.”

Lee gives him a faintly annoyed look. “Dee and Kara share themselves.”

Oh for the love of… “Lee, I’m saying _I_ want to frack you.”

Lee nearly trips. “You what?”

“Gods, Dee was right. You don’t take a hint.” Sam isn’t sure if he’s more annoyed or amused. “Maybe Kara had the right idea.” He stops and starts unlacing his shoe.

“What are you doing?” Lee looks scandalised, looking around like he expects Sam to start taking the rest of his clothes off too.

“Showing you my soulmark.”

“I don’t need to see your soulmark.”

“This one you do.” He leans on a tentpole. “You said your last soulmark is on the sole of your foot, right?”

“Yeah…” Lee’s not a complete dumbass; he finally clicks. “You can’t be my soulmate.”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Lee trails off, looking Sam over like he’s trying to find something. “I’d have known. I’d have felt something.”

“Kara fracked her soulmate and didn’t notice.”

“Yes but she’s – ” Lee stops, probably realising there’s no good way to end that sentence. “This is insane.”

“Probably,” Sam agrees, pulling his shoe off and holding his foot out helpfully. “Try it.”

“Sam.” Lee gives him a put-upon expression.

“If I’m wrong, I’ll pay for breakfast.”

Lee finally sighs and kneels down, touching the bottom of Sam’s foot with too-light, ticklish fingertips that make Sam want to squirm.

“See? Noth–” Lee’s expression shifts. He looks dumbfounded, starting up at Sam disbelievingly. “You,” he says, and that seems to be all he can get out.

For the second time Sam finds himself in the position of being stared at by his soulmate like his existence wasn’t entirely a good thing. And unlike with Dee, he doesn’t think Lee will overcome it quickly.

“You can let go of my foot now,” he prompts mildly, and Lee snatches his hands back like he’d been burned.

“You,” he repeats.

“Me,” Sam agrees. He offers Lee a hand to get up, and Lee hastily stands on his own power. “You’re paying for breakfast, by the way. Since I was right.”

“Right. Yes.” Lee can’t seem to stop staring at Sam. “Resistance fighter,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Of course.”

 _Resistance fighter_. Sam considers those words and isn’t sure he likes them. He’d left that life behind on Caprica. He’s a builder here. A lover. Kara’s pyramid player and Dee’s old soul. He’s not sure he _wants_ to be Lee’s resistance fighter, whatever path it implies for them.

For a moment, he’s afraid of what’s to come. Then he finds that old philosophical acceptance. Marks are by their nature obscure. There’s no telling what they mean until it hits you in the face. No point in ruining today over what could happen tomorrow. 

“Either kiss or move your asses!” Kara shouts impatiently from up ahead. “I’m starving!”

Sam catches Lee’s eyes and suddenly they’re both laughing. Sam has to hold onto a tent pole to keep from falling over.

“Gods,” he sighs, clutching his aching stomach. “This is not going to be dull, any of you.”

“I could have told you that already,” Lee retorts, but he’s smiling as he says it. 


End file.
